Google is p*ssing me off

I have a 2 1/2 year old niche, hobby related site full of what Google says they want - good quality content. I used to earn an easy $20 per day with Adsense, CTR consistently around the 10% level.

In order to keep good quality advertising on the site I used the competitive ad filter to weed out crappy .info sites that led to "sponsored results" pages. (isn't that what Google wants?) As an experiment I unblocked all my blocked urls. Guess what? My traffic went ballistic, proof that Google is penalising sites for using the competitive ad filter.

But my earning plummeted. Why? Because all those crappy MFA no-content sites that Google says they're banning were now free to pay me 2c per click and have readers landing on their arbitrage pages.

I've told Google about all those spammy, no-content urls but so far no action has been taken against them. And I'm not holding my breath. However, there is an upside to all this. I also use eBay to generate commissions and because of the increased traffic my eBay commisions are about to hit new highs.

So what do I do? Try to keep my site free from crap or keep the crap and rely more on eBay for my income? Surely Google doesn't want that?

So Google - fix the sh*t like you said you would and reward those of us who create real websites instead of the garbage you currently rely on for your income.

Sorry, I'm just really, really mad.

 

How does the google ad filter have ANY relationship to your traffic? Clicks, yes, traffic...NO. Your clicks would go up probably at first because the arbitrage sites write VERY good ad copy. VERY deceiving copy, too, which gets people to click on the ads. When they get to the advertisers site, though they find nothing. They also pay crap so even if clicks increase, earnings decrease. I've directly reported several directory sites that show up on my site. They don't have adsense ads but since they are using adwords they are seriously violating the recent TOS change.

 

Hai! Similar things too happened to my site. The ctr ranges between 7-8 % level. But most of the time, single click hardly earns 1 or 2 cents. As you said, I am going to join ebay and let me see whether my earning skyrockets or plummets

 

I feel your pain. I created a very good niche site with all original content and got no where while the MFA sites and automatic blogs soar past me. Google says one thing and does another. That is why you find nothing but crap when you search. I say stick with the traffic and get your money from eBay.

 

Hey, don't shoot the messenger. I have seen it reported on other forums that use of the competitor ad filter does affect traffic. Why or how I have no idea but all I know is that after removing all my blocked urls my traffic, and to be clear I mean number of unique visitors, went up by 25% overnight.

So unless you work for Google you can't state categorically that using the filter does not affect traffic when my experience would suggest that it does.

At the end of the day I would love to not have to worry about this but when Google clearly has no intention of fixing the problem I guess I'll have to take my own action. The solution is easy - that Google just ban the MFA sites, but Im not holding my breath. Maybe I should ban Google!

 

I'm not shooting anyone, I'm just pointing out something. How many days have you run your tests? The reason I say there is no relation is because the filter affects what ads are shown on your site AFTER the visitor gets there. Did your traffic from google-only visitors drop after you engaged the filter? The direct traffic cannot drop because of a filter, yahoo traffic isn't going to drop because of a filter. That would be like saying that yahoo knows you have a filter in place for Google ads and would lower your rankings.

The only way your VISITS would drop is if Google lowers your SE position when it detects that you have a filter in place. I have NOT noticed this effect, therefore it is not a system wide occurrence. Therefore I can only conclude that it is coincidental unless statistically significant data are shown.

 

Sorry but this is not a proof in any way. You may say an indication that maybe google is penalizing bla bla, but proof, no.

Anyway, hoping the best for you

 

Google is like women, don't try to understand them

 

New lows today, the first 5 clicks for a whopping 7 cents total! Woopee! Thanks Google! Funny, still no reply regarding the numerous .info sites I sent them that they supposedly want to ban. Fat chance.